Somewhere on a street in Malibu, Rhodey was driving with a cell phone to his ear. "What do you mean, he paid to have Tony killed?" He asked. "Pepper, slow down. Why would Obadi - okay, where is Tony now?"

_________________________________________________________________

"I don't know, he's not answering his phone," Pepper answered worriedly. She was walking out of a SHIELD building flanked by about half a dozen agents, Coulson at their head. "Please go over there and make sure everything's okay. Thank you, Rhodey."

She touched her earpiece and addressed Coulson. "I know a shortcut," she said.

_________________________________________________________________

Rhodey swerved sharply, and drove off for Tony's house.

_________________________________________________________________

Tony, obviously clinging to life, flung himself into an elevator. Scarlet had one of his arms around her neck with her other arm around his waist, trying to hold him up. Tony slid slowly down the wall of the elevator as it carried him down. When the door opened, he steadied himself against edge as he hauled himself over the threshold, every move clearly a terrible effort.

Tony pushed himself forward, and his hand just managed to push open the door to the garage.

There it sat on his desk: Pepper's gift to him, the old Arc Reactor. It was painfully far away, but it was there.

Tony fell to the floor, and began to crawl. Scarlet scrambled to help him up. Bit by bit, he made his way to the table on which sat the Arc Reactor. He pulled himself up on a plastic bin and stretched up his arm as far as he could. His hand came just short of reaching the glass case before he fell back down to the floor.

And then came the sound of a peculiar little whine, and down came a robotic arm with the Arc Reactor in its claw.

Tony reached up for the case, and looked up at Dum-E, who gave a little concerned click.

"Good boy," Tony said, before smashing the glass case. He got it in with Scarlet's help, but he was still struggling to gain his strength back.

_________________________________________________________________

Obadiah Stane sat before a Suit which did not seem to be the Mk I, the Arc Reactor in his hand as he gazed up at the towering Suit. After a few seconds he got up, and went up to his Suit, and there connected the cable to the center socket and pushed the unit inside. It went in with a click, and there was a mighty rumbling in answer from the Suit.

Obadiah gazed up at the Suit once more, and he smiled.

_________________________________________________________________

Rhodey burst into the lounge. "Tony?" he called. "Tony? Tony!" There was no response.

Rhodey tore down the stairs and into the workshop, and there lay Tony on the floor, doubled over next to the shattered glass. Rhodey instantly sprinted over to his side and rolled him over.

"Tony!" Rhodey cried in alarm. "Tony, you okay?"

Tony's color was already better (though not yet good) and the Arc Reactor gleamed in its socket as he gripped Rhodey's arm. "Where's Pepper?" he rasped, using both Scarlet and Rhodes to pull himself back up off the floor as he was obviously still too weak to do it himself.

"She's fine," Rhodey reassured him knowing he wasn't going to get anywhere otherwise. "She's with five agents. They're about to arrest Obadiah."

"That's not going to be enough," Tony told him seriously as he scrambled to bid feet.

Scarlet frowned a little at seeing Tony's haste to get back in action. Of course she knew that it was necessary for him to stop Pepper being killed and rid the world of Obadiah Stane. Tony had nearly died and by the looks of it the shrapnel must have been very close to his heart before she managed to get the arc reactor back in. It was inadvisable for him even to try and walk let alone fly an extremely heavy piece of machinery.

_________________________________________________________________

A silver car followed by a line of black cars pulled up in the No Parking zone of the Stark Industries Factory. Pepper and Coulson climbed out of the first car, followed by all the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Pepper keyed them inside, and in they went in double file.

"Sector 16," Pepper mumbled to herself a couple of times as she looked around before spotting it, the agents followed her around the large Arc Reactor. "Section 16 - there it is."

Pepper went straight up to a yellow door with the words 'Section 16' painted in black letters on the lock the words 'Authorized Technicians Only' painted under the window in red letters. She swiped her key, but aside from a soft beep nothing happened. She swiped again, with the same result.

Pepper turned around in frustration. "My key's not working," she said. "It's not opening the door - oh!" For Coulson had held out his hand behind him and an agent had placed something in it.

"Oh wow, what's that? It's, like, a little device that's going to pick the lock." Pepper inquired.

Coulson had placed the thing on the lock of the door. "You might want to take a few steps back," he said as it began to beep.

Pepper, Coulson, and the rest of the agents all retreated from the door a few paces and waited. Almost immediately there was a small explosion, and the door fell open.

_________________________________________________________________

Obadiah looked up at the noise, and turned to the Suit, hopping across an aisle to reach it.

_________________________________________________________________

Inside his workshop, Tony was putting on his own Suit with Rhodey looking on in wonder. "That's the coolest thing I've ever seen," he said.

Scarlet moved her hand towards the dial that turned the handles. She pulled it out as the gleaming liquid metal of her suit streamed like tendrils out of the watch and began forming the suit, the gauntlets wrapped around her wrists, the main section of the suit was lifted and then attached to her chest. The underlying leg mechanics and motors wrapped around her legs while the plates covering her back went over her shoulders. The underlying arm mechanics and motors wrapped around her arms while the armour plates slid into place to be deployed. The leg and waist armour plates slid down and began wrapping around the underneath assembly. The armour plates slid down the assembly and into place before rotating flat to cover the different sections of her body such as her legs and arms. As the arm plates flattened, the gauntlets fit into place. Chest plates slid across and flattened to provide torso, waist, and back protection while the shoulders and neck plates slid and locked into place as the helmet pieces were brought up from the back and fitted around Scarlet's head.

"Not bad, huh?" Tony told Rhodes with a smile before turning his attention towards J.A.R.V.I.S. "Let's do it."

Tony aimed a ray from his hand at the nearest of his cars, the one he'd crushed in the fall after his first flight, and sent it flying away from him.

Satisfied, he turned back to Rhodey.

"You need me to do anything else?" Rhodey asked.

Tony's mask went down. "Keep the skies clear," he said, and then he powered up the flight rays and zoomed up through the holes in the ceilings and into the night sky.

"Damn!" Rhodey exclaimed, staring up after Tony. Scarlet powered up her own flight boosters and shot off after Tony.

Rhodey turned to look at the Mk II, unpainted but still impressive-looking. "Next time, baby!" he said, and he swung himself into one of Tony's cars and sped away.

_________________________________________________________________

Phil Coulson's face appeared at a window in a door, the other four S.H.I.E.L.D. agents following behind with Pepper. He swung the door open, drew a pistol, and went inside very quietly. The others behind him followed suit.

They were in what must be the heart of Obadiah's workshop, for it was quite dark and there were big tubes and pipes and railings and warning signs everywhere. Pepper was looking around anxiously as they went.

Then they rounded a bend, and came upon the reconstituted Mk 1.

"It looks like you were right." Phil told Pepper. "He was building a suit."

"I thought it'd be bigger," Pepper added, and she looked up at a quiet buzzing noise behind her. Two cables which hung from the ceiling had obviously been recently disconnected from something, and were still buzzing.

The agents split up. Coulson took one agent and they vaulted over the railing next to them to go one way; another agent passed by a computer screen which showed various dangerous-looking upgrades to the Mk I Suit.

Coulson and the agent with him continued to make their way forward.

Pepper was alone. She seemed to be following a trail of dangling still-buzzing cables, and she'd come to what was almost a curtain of chains which dangled from the ceiling.

Pepper started around at a slight noise behind her, but as it was very dark back behind the chains she couldn't see much of anything. She stepped forward to look more closely.

There was a clang.

A mask lit up at the eyes.

Something rose up, towering at a colossal height. The glowing eyeholes of the mask saw Pepper, a target marked in red, who screamed and ran.

And then, as Pepper came tearing around the corner and the agents turned, they saw it.

The Suit was massive, easily ten feet high, and it swept aside anyone that stood in its path. The agents fired uselessly, but of course could not damage the thing.

Pepper was running for her life through the sector, the great Suit charging after her. An enormous metal claw of a hand lunged forward for her, and just barely missed her.

_________________________________________________________________

Tony flew through the sky. Scarlet followed beside, her suit being much more powerful than his due to the fact Tony had his original Arc Reactor in his chest.

As he rounded a corner, Tony was having a brief conversation with his AI. "How do you think the Mark I chest piece is going to hold up?" He asked J.A.R.V.I.S.

"The Suit is at forty-eight percent power and failing, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. "That chest piece was never designed for sustained flight."

"Keep me posted," Tony told him wanting to make sure he wouldn't get any nasty shocks during the fight which would put him at a disadvantage.
He put more power into the thrusters and powered his way towards the factory.

_________________________________________________________________

"Pepper?" came Tony's voice on Pepper's cell phone as she ran out of the Stark Industries factory.

"Tony!" she cried. "Tony, are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" Tony replied.

"Obadiah, he - he's gone insane!" Pepper exclaimed, pausing to talk to him. "He built a Suit-"

"I know, listen, you'd better get out of there - get out of there right now!"

But the pavement behind Pepper began to suddenly move and swell upward till it cracked and broke, and up from a hole in the asphalt rose the Suit, the gigantic Iron Monger. It stepped out from the hole and towered over Pepper.

"Where do you think you're going?" Obadiah demanded, his voice amplified and slightly distorted by the Suit.

Pepper backed away with a scream as Obadiah lifted an arm. "Your services are no longer required!" he said, and a barrel of enormous rounds on top of the arm began to spin.

"STANE!"

At the last possible moment Tony's red-and-gold Mk III had come barreling down out of the heavens and sailed directly into the Iron Monger.

Too big and slow and heavy to react in time, the Iron Monger was knocked backward out of Stark Industries grounds and onto the busy thoroughfare outside.

Tony sailed into the side of a truck, but Obadiah landed on the street in the middle of an intersection. Cars swerved to avoid the beast of terror, but Obadiah grabbed a car and threw it over his shoulder as it tried to pass.

"Son of a bitch!" Scarlet growled, narrowly avoiding the car.

The other cars began slamming into each other as they skidded away from the chaos, but one minivan with a woman and her children inside it came to a screeching halt right in front of the Iron Monger. They screamed in terror as their mother slammed on the brakes.

"Oh, no, please don't let -" Scarlet began.

Obadiah clanked to his feet and grabbed the minivan, lifting it into the air above his head.

"No! What did they ever do to you?!" Scarlet screamed.

"I love this Suit!" Obadiah cried as he turned toward Tony, the minivan full of screaming children dangling from his grasp.

Scarlet growled, her hands curled into fists, shifting into laser cannons. No doubt one blast from those lasers could have reduced the Iron Monger to a pile of twisted fragments.

"Put them down!" Tony demanded.

"Collateral damage, Tony," Obadiah responded, stamping forward.

"Collateral damage?! You grabbed them!" Scarlet shrieked.

"Divert power to chest RT," Tony ordered to J.A.R.V.I.S., lowering his hands. The chest piece took a moment to power up before throwing out a blast that sent the Iron Monger flying backward and made him let go of the minivan. At the same time, Scarlet let loose two powerful laser blasts from her clenched fists.

Tony caught the minivan, but his Suit was not as bulky as Obadiah's. He stood wobbling under the weight of the car as he tried to hold it up.

"Oh, no," Scarlet mumbled. "no, no, no. . ."

"Power reduced to nineteen percent," J.A.R.V.I.S. told his creator as Tony struggled to hold up the minivan.

"Yeah, well I'm not surprised!" Scarlet exclaimed as Tony sank to one knee.

The woman slammed on the gas, and the minivan came down on the ground with a thud. It took off down the highway as Tony clung to the hood.

"Lady!" Tony shouted in protest as he began to slide down the hood. "No, no, no, no, no -" The minivan rolled over him as he slid down to the ground.

"Ugh!" Tony grunted as he lifted the back wheels to keep from being crushed. Then he rolled over as he let go, and the minivan sped safely away.

For Obadiah was charging up the street toward Tony with a roar and a jump that took him another teen feet into the air. Just as he reached Tony, a motorcyclist came zooming in between them. Obadiah grabbed the motorcycle and sent Tony flying backward with it.

A nearby bus had skidded to the side of the road, and now its doors opened and frantic passengers began climbing out of it and running away, many of them screaming.

Obadiah ran forward and grabbed Tony, flinging him high into the air. "For thirty years I've been holding you up!" he bellowed. Then he threw Tony back down on the ground and stamped on him with his huge right foot. "I built this company from nothing!"

"Oh please," Scarlet scoffed. "Howard Stark started the company up which meant it was a long way from nothing. And without Tony's inventions you wouldn't have gotten anywhere and the company would have become nothing after Howard's death."

Obadiah reached down to pick Tony up with his hand, or claw, again.

"Nothing's going to stand in my way!" He hurled Tony into the bus right through the side, which thankfully was now empty. "Least of all you!"

"Oh yeah?" Scarlet asked. "That's Iron Man you're talking to!"

A large projectile opened from the shoulder of the Iron Monger and aimed itself straight at the ruined bus. It fired an explosive into the bus, which went up in flames with a bang.

"Oh . . ." Scarlet gasped in alarm.

The force of the explosion sent Tony sailing up into the air again, and as he came down his flight repulsors came to life. He went from falling to hovering upright in the air in a moment.

"Impressive!" Obadiah cried with a laugh. "You've upgraded your armor! I've made some upgrades of my own!"

And then the Iron Monger lifted off the ground and began to ascend through the air, its flight repulsors using as much force as a small spaceship and letting off about as much smoke.

"Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. told Tony flatly bringing up the specs from the suit up on the HUD. "It appears that his Suit can fly."

"Statin' the obvious, J.A.R.V.I.S.!" Scarlet exclaimed taking off into the sky.

"Duly noted," Tony replied quickly. "Take me to maximum altitude."

"With only fifteen percent power, the odds of reaching that altitude -" J.A.R.V.I.S. rattled off.

"Fifteen percent?!" Scarlet shrieked.

"I know the math!" Tony snapped, looking down as the Iron Monger approached him. "Do it!"

J.A.R.V.I.S. obeyed. The Mk III took off toward the clouds while the Iron Monger flew up in pursuit after it and Scarlet. Tony's suit disappeared into a layer of black cloud with Obadiah's following closely behind. Tony was pulling away due to her lighter weight but Obadiah wasn't being left too far behind her.

_________________________________________________________________

From the lot of the SI factory, Pepper watched worriedly.

_________________________________________________________________

Back at the Military base, the radar blips representing Obadiah and Tony rose up a screen. "Sir, you're not going to believe this," the young private said sitting in front of the screen. "That thing is back!"

"Get me Major Allen," his superior ordered. "Scramble the jets."

The private picked up the phone by his desk, but a hand came down and prevented him. "Not necessary, people," Rhodey announced, looking around the room. "Just a training exercise."

"Yes, sir," mumbled the young man, staring up at the Colonel and putting down the phone.

_________________________________________________________________

Back in the sky, Tony sailed up, away from Obadiah, and for a moment it looked as if he might really be getting away. But then the Iron Monger sped up, and for all its bulk began to give real chase. Behind him a giant billowing cloud of smoke was emerging.

"He's fast!" Scarlet exclaimed.

"Thirteen percent power, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. told his creator.

"Climb!" Tony barked.

"Eleven percent," J.A.R.V.I.S. said almost strained as the moon came clearly into view on the HUD.

"Keep going!" Tony said the pain that he was obviously feeling showing in his face and voice for once. It was clearly excruciating for him to do this.

"The Iron Monger is icing over," Scarlet blurted suddenly, her HUD was showing the Iron Monger behind her as well as the view in front of her.

It was true. As the Iron Monger pursued the Mk III, there was a layer of ice forming on it. In fact, nearly the whole Suit was iced over already; only the helmet was relatively ice-free.

This was far better, for it meant that the Iron Monger would give out soon, but unless it was very soon Tony was sure to run out of power.

The Arc Reactor in the middle of the Mk III began to flicker. "Seven percent," J.A.R.V.I.S. said.

"C'mon, ice over already!" Scarlet moaned.

"Just leave it on the screen," Tony scolded his AI. "Stop telling me."

And then Obadiah reached out and grabbed Tony's foot, yanking him down so that Tony's helmet was on a level with his own. He wrapped his other hand around the neck of the Mk III.

Scarlet stopped flying and spun around, snarling.

"You had a great idea, Tony!" Obadiah bellowed as his helmet crusted with ice. "But my Suit is more advanced in every way!"

"Almost," Scarlet muttered.

"Yeah? How'd you solve the icing problem?" Tony asked.

"Icing problem?" Obadiah asked as the lights inside his helmet suddenly began to flicker before going out entirely.

"Icing problem!" Scarlet confirmed with a nod.

"Might want to look into it," Tony added, and he knocked on the top of the helmet with the back of his hand. The Iron Monger began to fall, and great indeed was that fall.

Tony hovered where he was, watching the fall of the Iron Monger. "Two percent," J.A.R.V.I.S. said and the Suit started spluttering and falling short distances at a time as the flight repulsors went in and out. "We are now running on emergency backup power."

"Oh, crap," Scarlet murmured.

"Whoa!" Tony exclaimed as he went down. He managed to land safely on the roof of his factory, falling onto his knees as he did. He climbed to his feet. "Potts?" He asked.

_________________________________________________________________

"Tony!" Pepper cried with a gasp. "Oh, my God, are - are you okay?"

_________________________________________________________________

"I'm almost out of power," Tony replied, peeling off one glove of the Mk III as he spoke and lifting the visor of his helmet. "I've got to get out of this thing. I'll be right there -"

But a great clanking thud behind him put a stop to that as the Iron Monger appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

"Oh shit, not you again!" Scarlet cried out.

"Nice try!" Obadiah jeered as Tony whirled around, mask flying back down.

Obadiah aimed a punch at Tony's head. Tony ducked, and flung out his right hand - but his right hand was bare. He glanced at it, distracted just for a moment, and Obadiah dealt him a blow that sent him spinning backward through the air.

"Is there an end to this guy?!" Scarlet cried.

Tony landed on hands and knees a few feet away, jumped up, and made a flying leap at Obadiah, punching him with his left hand (which was still gloved). Obadiah caught him by the arm and then grabbed him around the middle of the Suit with both hands. With a growl he began to squeeze.

"Oh, no, no, no. . ." Scarlet said.

"Weapons status," Tony choked as the plates of metal began bending and twisting and little pieces of the Suit popped out behind him.

"Repulsors offline, missiles offline," J.A.R.V.I.S. reported.

Obadiah smiled inside the helmet as the claws of his Suit slowly destroyed the Mk III.

"Flares!" Tony shouted out, and though there was not enough power left for a real spurt of fire, there was enough to send a series of sparks at the Iron Monger that made him Obadiah drop Tony as he tried to right his helmet.

"Very clever, Tony," Obadiah replied to that individual. Tony, who seemed to have somehow got around a corner while Obadiah wasn't looking, peered cautiously around it as Obadiah clanked around the roof. His screen was cracked but still appeared to be functioning.

"Potts?" Tony asked again, more quietly this time so Obadiah wouldn't hear him.

_________________________________________________________________

"Tony!" Pepper cried out.

_________________________________________________________________

"This isn't working," Tony whispered. "We're going to have to overload the Reactor and blast the roof."

_________________________________________________________________

"Well, how are you going to do that?" Pepper asked.

_________________________________________________________________

"You're going to do it," said Tony.

"Of course," Scarlet mumbled.

"Go to the central console, open up all the circuits. When I get clear of the roof, I'll let you know." Tony added. "You're going to hit the bypass button, it's going to fry everything up here."

_________________________________________________________________

"Okay," said Pepper, carefully making her way back into the factory, the floor of which was showered with glass (in three-inch pumps, no less). "I'm going in now."

"Make sure you wait until I'm clear of the roof," Tony finished. "I'll buy you some time." And he ducked out of sight as Obadiah came his way.

_________________________________________________________________

Inside the factory, Pepper pulled down switch after switch.

_________________________________________________________________

Tony managed to jump up on the back of the Iron Monger. Obadiah growled and tried to turn, but he was too late. Tony, clinging to the neck of the Iron Monger, had just got a glimpse of something in the base of its helmet that J.A.R.V.I.S. brought up for a closer look. The words 'Weak Point Located' appeared next to the icon.

"This looks important!" Tony said triumphantly, and he gripped the thing with his bare hand and yanked it out. The Iron Monger's helmet sputtered threateningly, looking like it was about to go out again.

_________________________________________________________________

Pepper pushed a row of square, glowing buttons one by one.

_________________________________________________________________

Obadiah tried to reach behind his head for Tony, twisting from side to side. He succeeded before long, and threw Tony right onto the glass panes that were directly above the middle of the large Arc Reactor below.

"C'mon, Pepper . . ." Scarlet muttered, quietly.

_________________________________________________________________

Pepper twisted a row of dials.

_________________________________________________________________

Up on the roof, the chest pieces of the Iron Monger folded back and its helmet opened to allow Obadiah's head to emerge.

"There you are, you scoundrel!" Scarlet snarled, her eyes were black as the night sky.

"I never had a taste for this sort of thing," said Obadiah, looking down at the Mk III helmet that he was holding. "But I must admit, I'm deeply enjoying the Suit!" He crumbled the helmet to a twisted lump of metal and threw it next to Tony.

Tony raised his head to look up at Obadiah.

"You finally outdid yourself, Tony!" said Obadiah as the Iron Monger clanked forward. "You made your father proud!"

"Do not bring Howard into this!" Scarlet shot back hotly - but she made sure Tony did not hear her.

Tony climbed to his feet, no doubt ready to begin another assault.

_________________________________________________________________

Pepper pushed the last buttons and flipped open the cover of a large red one. "It's ready, Tony," she said. "Get off the roof!"

_________________________________________________________________

Tony heard her through the crumpled helmet next to him.

Obadiah smiled at Tony, and began shooting out all the glass around Tony's feet. Tony held up his arm, but nothing in it was working. He started to fall as the glass under his feet broke, and he clung to the metal bars for dear life.

_________________________________________________________________

Pepper screamed as a shower of glass came down on her, for she was now directly under the spot to which Tony was clinging.

Obadiah continued to shoot out all the glass, sending another rain of shards down on the unfortunate Pepper.

_________________________________________________________________

Pepper looked up, and saw Tony dangling many feet above her. "Tony!" she screamed.

_________________________________________________________________

"How ironic, Tony!" Obadiah sneered. "Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever!"

"Ouch," Scarlet winced.

"Pepper!" Tony bellowed, his eyes fixed on his enemy.

"And now," Obadiah finished. "I'm going to kill you with it!"

Obadiah lifted his arm, and shot a small missile that exploded at the side of the roof (actually quite a distance from Tony).

"Uh, what?!" Scarlet was rather puzzled.

"You ripped out my targeting system," Obadiah growled, taking another step forward.

"Time to hit the button!" Tony shouted down at Pepper.

"Oh no, seriously?" Scarlet questioned.

_________________________________________________________________

"You told me not to!" Pepper wailed.

_________________________________________________________________

"Hold still, you little prick," Obadiah snarled, lifting his arm again. This time the missile bit off a piece of the roof behind Tony and Scarlet - somewhat better, but not much.

"Just do it!" Tony shouted.

_________________________________________________________________

"You'll die!" Pepper howled.

Obadiah took aim again, and this time (though he still didn't hit Tony) the explosion caused Tony to lose hold with his bare hand. "Push it!" he shouted.

Pepper punched the button, and raced away from the station as the Reactor came to life and filled the room with charges that could have individually powered a house each.

Tony then gave Scarlet one last glance and smiled at me through teary eyes.

"I love you so much, Scarlet. You know that right?" Tony said.

"Yeah. I love you too." Scarlet felt tears flow freely down her face.

"This is goodbye."

Scarlet frowned at him in confusion, until she realized that he was using whatever power's left in the armor to haul her up and throw her out of the blast despite the fact that her suit was still fully operational.

"Tony!" Scarlet cried.

Then the reactor sent a blast of power up to the roof which blasted Tony aside and struck the Iron Monger's smaller Reactor.

"Whoa!" Scarlet shouted as she was into the air, as the outskirts of the blast from the arc reactor hit part of her. Explosions sounded around her as she was blown away, energy from the arc reactor surging throughout her entire body.

Obadiah gave a cry as the resulting shock sent a bolt of electricity into the heavens, causing a streak of lightning and a clap of thunder.

"Now if that didn't finish him -" Scarlet huffed, hovering in the air.

Obadiah was dead before the Suit even began to fall, clanking its way down through the factory into the great Arc Reactor. There was a burst of flame that nearly caught Tony as he rolled away from the hole in the roof.

Then, slowly, the air cleared. Tony lay unmoving, the Arc Reactor flickering feebly. "Tony!" came the voice of Pepper, and whether it was an echo of memory or really her voice no one could tell.

The Arc Reactor went out.

_________________________________________________________________

On the screen of a television, a press conference was being streamed live. Rhodey was standing at the podium, the same one from which Tony had delivered his fateful company turnaround statement after Afghanistan.

"You've all received the official statement of what occurred at Stark Industries last night," Rhodey was saying. "There have been unconfirmed reports that a robotic prototype malfunctioned and caused damage to the Reactor. Fortunately, a member of Tony Stark's personal staff. . ."

The television was behind a couch where Tony was currently sitting reading a newspaper and being attended to by Pepper. The headline ran, Who is the Iron Man? There was a picture of Tony's Mk III that somebody had taken during the street fight the night before.

"Iron Man," Tony said as he perused one of the articles about himself. "That's kind of catchy. It's got a nice ring to it. I mean, it's not technically accurate, the Suit's a gold-titanium al-loy -" He winced a little as Pepper pulled a plaster off of his nose. "But it's kind of evocative - the imagery, anyway."

Scarlet was sitting in a couch, across the room with three baby dragons; a little cream and gold dragon nuzzled in her arm, a little green and bronze dragon climbed her leg, and the third one; a little black and red dragon pulled itself up to sit on her shoulder.

"More like Iron Dumbass." Scarlet muttered and Tony quirked an eyebrow towards her. She was reading a newspaper dated from the 1950's.

"Here's your alibi," Phil Coulson said, who was standing nearby, and he handed Tony a set of blue cards.

"Okay," Tony said as he took them.

"You were on your yacht," Coulson explained.

"Yeah," Tony acknowledged flicking through the cards, absently as he read the cards.

"We have port papers that put you in Avalon all night," Coulson added. "And sworn statements from fifty of your guests."

"See," Tony replied. "I was thinking maybe we could say it was just, ah, just Pepper and me alone on the island." He looked impishly up at Pepper.

Pepper pulled another bandage rather severely, with a smile, and began applying makeup to cover the scars.

Scarlet stifled a laugh.

"That's what happened," Coulson insisted.

"All right," Tony replied, looking back down at the cards.

"Just read it word for word," Coulson told her.

Tony frowned. "There's nothing about Stane here."

"That's being handled," Coulson explained. "He's on vacation. Small aircrafts have such a poor safety record."

"But what about the whole cover story that it's a bodyguard?" Tony clearly wasn't having any of it. "I mean, that's kind of flimsy, don't you think?"

"This isn't my first rodeo, Mr. Stark," Coulson said. "Just stick to the official statement and soon this will all be behind you."

Pepper finished making Tony up and smoothed her hair behind her ear.

"You've got ninety seconds," Coulson informed her as he walked away leading Tony to reshuffle the cards again still looking extremely uncertain.

Pepper hurried after him and stopped him at the door. "Oh, Agent Coulson," she said. "I just wanted to say, thank you very much for all of your help."

"That's what we do," Phil told her. "You'll be hearing from us."

"From the Strategic Homeland Interven-" Pepper began arching her eyebrows.

"Just call us S.H.I.E.L.D.," Phil cut in, and for a moment his impassive smile seemed more genuine as he turned and walked away.

"Right!" Pepper scoffed, and she trotted over to pick up Tony's suit-jacket. "Let's get this show on the road."

"You know, actually, it's not that bad," Tony said, getting up. "Even I don't think I'm Iron Man."

"You're not Iron Man," Pepper told him, helping Tony into the jacket.

"Am so!" Tony insisted, gripping the cards between his teeth as he got his arms into the sleeves.

"You're not!" Pepper replied.

"All right, suit yourself," Tony said. "You know, if I were Iron Man, I'd have this girlfriend who knew my true identity - she'd be a wreck, 'cause she'd always be worrying that I was going to die," he pulled the cards out of his mouth and turned around. "yet so proud of the man I'd become. She'd be wildly conflicted, which would only make her more -" he cleared his throat as Pepper straightened a folded square of silk in his buttonhole. "- crazy about me - tell me you never think about that night."

"What night?" Pepper asked.

"You know," said Tony.

Pepper looked up into his face for the first time. "Are you talking about - the night that we danced?" she asked. "And went up on the roof, and then you - went downstairs to buy me a drink and left me there by myself? Is that the night you're talking about?"

"Mm-hm," Tony hummed, deflating visibly.

"Thought so," Pepper said, straightening his jacket.

There was about an instant's silence during which Tony's eyes rolled up and away from Pepper's face.

"Will that be all, Mr. Stark?" Pepper asked.

"That will be all, Ms. Potts," Tony replied at the same moment, and he left in rather a hurry.

_________________________________________________________________

"And now, Mr. Stark has prepared a statement," said Rhodey down in the conference room, and then as the reporters began to pipe up he added, "He will not be taking any questions. Thank you."

Rhodey stood aside, and Tony came up to the microphone. "Uh. . ." he trailed off, clearly a bit out of balance. ". . .been a while since I was in front of you, I figured I'll just stick with the cards this time."

The press people all chuckled.

Tony cleared his throat, and Pepper watched the livestream from upstairs.

"There's been speculation," Tony began. "that I and Scarlet were involved in the events on the freeway and on the rooftop -"

"I'm sorry Mr. Stark," broke in an all-too-familiar voice. "but do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared, despite the fact that you -"

"I know that it's confusing," Tony replied, making a face. "It is one thing for you to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations or insinuate that I'm a superhero -"

Christine smirked. "I never said you were a superhero," she said.

"You didn't," Tony backtracked. "Well good, because that would be outlandish and, uh, fantastic -"he looked back down, and Christine arched her eyebrows skeptically.

"I'm just not the hero type, clearly," Tony added. "with this, uh, laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I've made, largely public. . ."

Rhodey put his mouth to Tony's ear. "Stick to the cards, man," he whispered. Tony nodded.

"Yeah, okay, yeah," Tony responded, seeming for a moment to pull it together and holding up the cards to look at them again. "Truth is. . ." He looked up, and his face went completely blank.

"I am Iron Man."

"And I am Red Angel also referred to as Crimson Hunter, the Winter Soldier's Partner."

Tony's eyes met Scarlet's once again, giving her a small smirk. She tried to suppress a smile. This man was going to be the end of her. She could feel it. Scarlet just couldn't tell if that was good or bad yet.

Instantly the press conference room was in uproar and every reporter sprang to his or her feet - all except, of course, for Christine Everhart.

Tony almost smiled for a moment.